The House Ethics Committee is recommending that Rep. Chuck Edwards (R-N.C.) be censured for his behavior toward two young female staff members.
In a 25-page report released Monday, the panel said it found that Edwards “engaged in persistent unprofessional and inappropriate conduct” toward the staffers, which included giving them “lavish” gifts, inviting them to “intimate dinners and vacations” and sending them notes about his “effusive affection” for them.
The report outlined several examples of how Edwards allegedly crossed the line. He gave the two staff members “lavish” gifts, including “jewelry totaling over $1,000, designer purses, guns, shoes, flowers, a laptop and cell phone, KitchenAid mixer, robotic vacuum” and more, according to the report.
He also invited them to “intimate dinners and vacations” and sent them “personal texts late in the evenings, including messages planning or following activities together and expressing personal sentiments.”
In one instance, the report said, Edwards went to a staffer’s house “to perform chores like yardwork, pick her up and drop her off for events and activities with his driver, and decorate her Christmas tree together (for which he skipped votes in the House that evening).”
In another instance, Edwards had “approximately 30 different types of ice cream” delivered to a staffer’s house. He also wrote poems for one of the staffers, “including one that he read at her going away party in the congressional office accompanied by a slideshow, during which he cried,” the report said.
“Members are prohibited from engaging in sexual harassment or making unwanted advances towards their subordinates,” the ethics panel said in its report. “Representative Edwards violated the Code of Official Conduct by failing to adhere to the letter and spirit of those prohibitions, and by failing to act in a manner that reflects creditably upon the House.”
Both of the staff members eventually left the congressman’s office for other jobs according to the report, which stated that the panel is “concerned that the House regrettably lost two staffers because of Representative Edwards’ conduct.”
“This Report should not only hold Representative Edwards accountable for his poor judgment and unbecoming conduct but also serve as a caution to all Members that sexual harassment and discrimination will not be tolerated in the House,” the House Ethics Committee report said.
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